DIY: Halloween Decorations

DIY 3 Minutes

We used to love to decorate our house for Halloween, but since we moved and without kids to enjoy it, or even other adults to enjoy it, we don’t anymore.  There is a house along our normal driving route here in town that has one of those gigantic skeletons. Over the summer, hands began to emerge out of the ground. The last time we went by that house, the skeleton had emerged from the ground up to his waist. It is soooo cool! It takes planning and dedication…but these decorations are awesome and easy to do!

Tomato Cage Ghosts

Tools and Materials

metal tomato stand

white paper lantern

pre-cut ghost face shapes (peel-and-stick felt: 2 eyes and a mouth)

lightweight white fabric, white gauze or “creepy cloth”

floral wire

1. Prep the Cages

Spray paint the metal tomato cages white. If you only have one size tomato cage and want different-sized ghosts, use a wire cutter to remove a section of the cage. Turn the stand upside down so the widest part becomes the sturdy base of the ghost. Bend the metal spikes inward toward the middle until they meet. If necessary, use floral wire to hold the spikes in place.

2. Attach the Head

Unfold and assemble the large white paper lanterns according to the package instructions. Place the lantern’s opening onto the tomato stand’s spikes. Use floral wire to hold the lantern upright.

3. Add Lights

Run white string lights up and down each row of the tomato stand, ensuring even coverage.

4. Wrap the Body

Drape the pre-cut white fabric over the top of the lantern head and down the tomato stand. Secure the fabric in the back of the stand with safety pins to hold it in place.

5. Stick on the Face

Attach the felt eyes and mouth to the lanterns to create spooky ghost faces. Instead of buying the pre-made ghost face, you could use felt to make the eyes and attach them to the ghost using fabric glue.

You can find more pictures and detailed instruction at hgtv.com.

Rats Eating a Chair

This effect is amazingly simple.  The stuffing is not coming out of the cushions—it’s merely regular cotton stuffing.  All you need to add is some fake rats!

Black Cat Pumpkins

Materials Needed:

faux pumpkins of various sizes and shapes

hot glue gun and glue sticks

black exterior paint

2″ foam paintbrush

scissors

black craft foam

medium-tipped white paint marker

white craft paint

small craft paintbrush

gray and light brown pipe cleaners

felt (light gray, light brown or red)

black marker

Paint Pumpkins

Cover pumpkins with three coats of black exterior paint, allowing paint to dry fully between coats.

Create Ears and Eyes

Use scissors to cut two arrow-shaped ears out of a piece of black craft foam (Image 1). Use a kitchen knife to cut a small slot in the top of the pumpkin to fit the ears (Image 2). Apply a dab of hot glue to ear tabs’ back side then insert them into the ear slots (Image 3). Use a white paint pen to draw on angled cat eyes then fill them in using the paint pen or a small paintbrush and white craft paint (Image 4).

Create and Attach Nose and Whiskers

To create a nose, use a black marker to draw an arch on one corner of a felt sheet, then cut along the marked line. Apply a dab of hot glue to the center of the nose only and secure it to the pumpkin just below the eyes. Cut three pipe cleaners in half and use hot glue to attach them to the pumpkin under the edges of the felt nose. Using a faux pumpkin ensures you can display your crafty kitties year after year — just store them somewhere relatively cool to prevent the hot glue from melting.

SOURCE: HGTV.COM

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Published by pat frederick

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51 thoughts on “DIY: Halloween Decorations”

    1. Good morning! 47 here this morning; still dark but I can see the moon thru the humidity haze…..Gage will be here around 11 am to load up the mower. I think I’ll have him help me get a load of the heavy stuff ready for the transfer center while he’s here.

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  5. Liked by 1 person

  6. Just The News: “The United States Supreme Court is expected to run out of government funding on Saturday, and other federal courts will be impacted by the government shutdown early next week. The Supreme Court is expected to remain in session during the shutdown but will need to close its doors to the public starting Monday, Supreme Court public information officer Patricia McCabe said in a statement.

    “The Supreme Court will continue to conduct essential work such as hearing oral arguments, issuing orders and opinions, processing case filings, and providing police and building support needed for those operations,” McCabe told The Hill.

    Federal judges will continue their necessary work during the shutdown, but staff will only be allowed to perform certain protected activities on duty. The judges and their staff will not receive pay starting Monday, until the shutdown is over. 

    “Until the ongoing lapse in government funding is resolved, federal courts will maintain limited operations necessary to perform the Judiciary’s constitutional functions,” the administrative office of the U.S. Courts said. “Each appellate, district, and bankruptcy court will make operational decisions regarding how its cases and probation and pretrial supervision will be conducted during the funding lapse,” the office added. 

    The Judiciary branch was able to cover its paid operations through Oct. 17, and additional work performed over the weekend will be covered by court fee balances and other funds not dependent on appropriation.” 

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Just The News: “President Donald Trump took the U.S. supply of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine off the table ahead of a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday.

    The missiles were part of a lengthy news cycle regarding the prospects of their handover, which could have enabled Ukraine to escalate its strikes on infrastructure in the Russian interior. In public comments, Trump suggested that the American supply was too limited to risk depleting Washington’s own arsenal.

    “We need Tomahawks for the U.S. too. We have many but we need them, we can’t deplete, they are very vital,” he said.

    Zelensky’s meeting, moreover, comes as Trump plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hungary, a member state of both NATO and the European Union. Hungarian President Viktor Orban enjoys strong relations with both Trump and Putin and has long irritated EU leaders over his willingness to pursue diplomacy out of step with Brussels.

    The refusal to supply Ukraine with Tomahawks may come in the hopes of de-escalating the conflict. At present, however, Russia is on the offensive and appears poised to capture the logistics hub cities of Kupyansk and Pokrovsk in the coming weeks.”

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Trump on TS: “Third Rate Congressman Thomas Massie, a Weak and Pathetic RINO from the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky, a place I love, and won big SIX TIMES, must be thrown out of office, ASAP! The incredible people of Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District gave us a mandate to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and the person that will help us do that is Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Fifth Generation Kentucky Farmer, Captain Ed Gallrein, a true America First Patriot.
     
    A Brave Combat Veteran, Ed knows the Wisdom and Courage required to Defend our Country, Support our Military/Veterans, and Ensure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH. Additionally, as a very successful Businessman, Ed knows how to Create GREAT Jobs, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Support our Amazing Farmers and American Agriculture, Unleash American Energy Dominance, and Champion our Nation’s Golden Age. In Congress, he will fight tirelessly to Keep our now very Secure Border, SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment.
     
    I hope Ed gets into the Race against Massie, who is now polling at about 9% because the Great People of Kentucky are wise to him — He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike “lightweight” Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN. Should he decide to challenge Massie, Captain Ed Gallrein has my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, ED, RUN — MAGA!

    https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115391855540856433

    Liked by 1 person

  10. “Stop Celebrating Men Like Pentatonix Singer Scott Hoying For Renting Wombs And Buying Babies”

    The Federalist, By: Catherine Gripp, October 17, 2025

    Interview showing a reporter, Rylee Arnold, Scott Hoying and Mark Hoying.

    ENTIRE ARTICLE: “Pentatonix singer and current Dancing With The Stars competitor Scott Hoying took advantage of the show’s “dedication night” on Tuesday to announce that he and his “husband” are buying a baby via surrogacy. 

    Of course, that’s not the word Hoying or the overeager reporters used in their post-dance interviews with Hoying, his partner Mark, and dance partner Rylee Arnold. “We’re having a baby,” Scott and Mark announced in a video posted to Instagram and aired on the show. “Our surrogate is pregnant. We’re going to be dads.”

    “Were you rehearsing when you found out you were having a baby, you were pregnant?” one reporter asked, unfazed by the absurdity of referring to two men as “pregnant” because they are renting a woman’s womb. 

    Scott and Mark’s decision adds them to a long train of celebrity-types who’ve boarded the baby-buying trend. But as has frequently been reported in these pages, surrogacy creates a host of concerns, like the mass disposal of human embryos created through IVF, disconnection from one side of a child’s family, practical problems like difficulty accessing medical records, and more bioethical problems. But not least of these issues caused by IVF and surrogacy is the fact that the process robs a child of the knowledge and presence of his true mother.

    Surrogacy on behalf of a gay couple typically requires one “mother” to furnish the egg, and another to carry the baby. A third “mother” is often introduced when the child searches for a woman to fill his innate maternal needs, described by Katy Faust as the “social mother.”

    Surrogacy commodifies both woman and child, as prospective parents choose desirable traits during the IVF process, and compensate — with tens of thousands of dollars — the birth mother. While surrogacy agencies often require that would-be parents undergo a screening, there is no across-the-board requirement for an adoption-like vetting process to ensure a safe and appropriate home for the child, as Faust has noted in these pages.

    As the Federalist has previously reported, unfettered surrogacy throws the door open for pedophiles to gain immediate access and “care of” babies and kids. Mark Newton, for example, was sentenced to 40 years in prison after he and his partner subjected the boy born by international surrogate to sickening sexual abuse over the first six years of his life.

    In an interview following his Dancing With The Stars routine, Hoying heralded “queer” representation in entertainment. “Growing up we didn’t see a lot of queer couples on TV — ever — and like I just like really, really hope that there’s queer kids out there that like feel like their story deserves to be told, and like they can find love and live their dreams,” Scott said. Like others who buy babies with the intention of taking them away from their mothers, Scott and Mark appear to view the child as a means to fulfill their own “dreams,” without regard for the baby’s best interests.

    In January, Faust shared a story in The Federalist of a little girl born by surrogate for two men, describing her ongoing search to discover whom she was supposed to look to as her mother. She and other surrogate-born children “must grapple with the fact that eliminating their right to be known and loved by their mother was necessary to advance their fathers’ queer utopia,” Faust wrote.

    Heartbreakingly, Hoying’s baby will have to do the same.”

    Liked by 1 person

        1. kids have a hard enough time figuring out where they belong in this world with “normal” parents. why do these fools think they are entitled to buy children and put them through even more upheaval?

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  11. Whoa! Forecast for next week calls for a low of 38 Monday night and 30 Tuesday night!!! Mostly the 60’s during the day except for a high of 58 on Tuesday. Brrrrr……winter’s coming! Yuck!

    Liked by 1 person

  12. NF: IMO, I think this insistence on returning each and every body is over-the-top. That’s pretty much going to be impossible and the soul/essence of the person is gone regardless. The body is just a shell.

    Just The News: “Israeli officials have confirmed the identity of Eliyahu Margalit, a 76-year-old man kidnapped during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 , as one of the hostages whose remains were recently returned. 

    The announcement came as the Palestinian death toll surpassed 68,000, largely due to continued recovery efforts beneath the rubble.

    Margalit, who was taken from the horse stables at Kibbutz Nir Oz where he worked, was identified through forensic testing by Israel’s National Center for Forensic Medicine. His family has been notified, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office that was released on Saturday.

    He is the tenth hostage confirmed to have been returned since the current ceasefire began more than one week ago. An eleventh body was also handed over by Hamas in recent days, though officials determined it did not belong to any of the known hostages.

    U.S. President Donald Trump had warned Hamas, saying he would support Israel in resuming military operations if the group fails to comply with the peace agreement to return all hostages’ bodies. A total of 28 individuals are still believed to be unaccounted for as of Saturday morning.

    In response to Margalit’s return, a support group representing the families of those kidnapped issued a statement welcoming the return of Margalit’s remains as a source of closure, but they emphasized their campaign would continue until all hostages and their remains are brought home.”

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Mr PitBull
    @MrPitbull07
    “I found this trophy saddle in my grandfather’s barn three months after his funeral and almost threw it away because it looked beyond saving.

    It was buried under moldy tarps and decades of dust, the leather cracked and faded, that gorgeous turquoise seat oxidized to almost nothing. My cousins wanted to toss everything and sell the property fast, kept saying his rodeo days were over and none of this junk mattered anymore. But I remembered him polishing this saddle every Sunday when I was little, telling stories about the competitions he won, the horses he loved, the life he lived before arthritis took it all away.

    Took it home in my trunk and cried the whole drive, this broken beautiful thing that represented everything he used to be. Spent two months researching leather restoration, teaching myself techniques through tutorials,conditioning and painting and bringing back colors I thought were lost forever. Hand-painted those intricate flowers and tooling details, trying to honor his memory with every careful brushstroke.

    Finished it last week and my grandmother came over, touched that turquoise seat with shaking hands, and whispered “he would have loved this.” Said it looks better than the day he won it in 1974.

    It sits in my living room now, not practical or functional, just a monument to a man who taught me that broken things deserve second chances.

    Miss you, Grandpa.” ~Credit: Olivia Ibsen Via FB

    Liked by 1 person

  23. “‘Everything Smith Did as a Deranged Prosecutor Helped President Trump Win the Presidency’ — John Lauro, the president’s criminal defense attorney in the January 6 case, describes his experience with Special Counsel Jack Smith and his henchmen in response to Smith’s recent publicity tour.”

    Julie Kelly, Oct 18, 2025

    EXCERPT: “In the summer of 2023, John Lauro—a New York-based defense attorney at the time representing Donald Trump related to the events of January 6—met the government prosecutors leading the criminal investigation into his client. For nearly two hours that day, Lauro spoke to Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team in response to Smith’s target letter notifying the former president that he was under investigation for attempts to “overturn the 2020 election.”

    Lauro and Todd Blanche, currently the deputy attorney general, tried to dissuade Smith from bringing yet another federal indictment against a former president and the leading GOP presidential candidate during an election. (Blanche at the time also represented Trump in the classified documents case brought by Smith in June 2023 in Florida.) “We went over all the reasons why a prosecution was not justified in terms of the First Amendment issue, the lack of merits, and most importantly on executive immunity and how important that was,” Lauro told me by phone on October 16. He further asked Smith “to consult with the solicitor general’s office and the office of legal counsel” before proceeding any further.

    Smith did not speak or ask any questions during their meeting; the next day, on August 1, 2023, Smith indicted the president on four counts in the J6 matter.

    In response to the special counsel’s recent attacks on the president and his DOJ, as I reported here, Lauro wants the public to know the Jack Smith he dealt with for more than a year in the J6 case in Washington, D.C. “I saw a gross deviation from Department of Justice norms and prosecutorial ethics by the entire Jack Smith team,” Lauro, a former federal prosecutor himself, said. “Every move he made as a prosecutor was not justified by prosecutorial ethics but was instead motivated by a single purpose—to get Donald Trump and prevent him from being president.”

    The purpose of the lawfare, however, extended beyond the pursuit of Donald Trump; the wholesale destruction of the MAGA Right was their ultimate goal, Lauro said. “What we were fighting was an effort to take out a political movement and Jack Smith was the prosecutorial hitman to do that.”

    According to Lauro, Attorney General Merrick Garland “did not want to do this case and didn’t want to go after President Trump.” Garland, however, caved to pressure from Joe Biden and Democrats to pursue both investigations. “The Biden administration was pushing, pushing, pushing and what Garland did is say, ‘ok, I’ll give you what you’re looking for. I’ll give you Jack Smith.’” Garland, Lauro said, knew Smith was a “political hack” but wanted to “wash his hands” of both cases and “hide behind the veneer” of an alleged independent prosecutor without direct ties to the attorney general.

    A Trigger-Happy Special Counsel Team in More Ways than One

    While Smith rushed to get the J6 case before a jury in the most Democratic city in the nation to put Trump behind bars before Election Day, the special counsel hit a major roadblock: the question of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. Unlike the documents case in Florida, which related to accusations about the president’s conduct after he left the White House, the J6 case covered the waning weeks of the Trump administration, representing the first time in history an American president faced criminal charges for acts in office…..”

    https://www.declassified.live/p/everything-smith-did-as-a-deranged

    Liked by 1 person

  24. OK, got the mower delivered to Bomgaars – Paul said he was talking to the guys in Sioux City and they think it might be a bad coil. As long as they fix it…..I gave Gage the coin collection folders and coin collecting book I had been saving for him and Piper. His GF’s son would be really interested in it. There is a book about collecting coins as well as coin folders and an almost complete set of the State Park quarters. At least someone will appreciate it. Gage helped me get my remote set so I only need one remote, instead of one for the DTV box and another for the TV.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I collected the NE State Park quarters but thanks anyway! I’m also going to give them my china closet and hutch and I sent along a porcelain-lined cooking pot. He texted her a picture of it and she said yes, she wanted it. I told him to have her come up one day and we’ll go thru things, like all the paintings.

        Liked by 1 person

  25. we went for a ride earlier and i talked to Mom. She’s not feeling well. She has a headache and a runny nose, but they wouldn’t giver her anything for it. I told her to call my brother and tell him to bring him cough drops and aspirin when he comes in later today.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. Just The News: “Two men rescued after a U.S. military strike on a suspected drug-laden vessel in the Caribbean will be returned to their home countries, Ecuador and Colombia, for prosecution, President Donald Trump announced Saturday.

    The strike, carried out Thursday, targeted a semi-submersible vessel believed to be transporting fentanyl and other narcotics along a well-known smuggling route toward the United States. It marked at least the sixth U.S. attack on similar vessels since early September.

    “It was my great honor to destroy a very large drug-carrying submarine that was navigating toward the United States on a well-known narcotrafficking transit route,” Trump wrote on his social media platform. “U.S. intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics.”
     
    According to Trump, two of the four people onboard were killed in the operation — one more than initially reported. The two survivors were rescued by U.S. forces and are now being transferred for detention and legal proceedings in their respective countries.

    Trump also released footage of the boat being hit.”

    Liked by 1 person

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